How many hours are in a day?

That's easy. We all know it's 24. 

But do you know how much time you spend in each section of your day?

Here's what I mean. We spend, on average, 8 hours a day at work. 

We're suppose to sleep for about 8 hours a day. Between the two that's 16 hours. 

That leaves us another 8 hours for anything else. That could be personal time and family time. That time could consist of watching TV, cooking, exercising, talking on the phone, and the list goes on. 

For my math gurus out there, that's, 8X3=24. So we have 3 sections to our day:

1)Work
2)Sleep
3)Personal/Family Time. 

On some days or weeks, we may spend more or less time in one section. For some, our jobs call for longer hours in a day. However your schedule is, what's important to note is that we all get the same amount of time in a day, how you use that time is up to you. 

When it comes down to our wellness, how we spend that time is important to our health. It's not enough to guess how much time we spend in each section. We have to be intentional and know exactly how much time we're spending and where. 

We need to have time to relax, we need to give our family time, we need to be able to work on hobbies. It may seem that we don't have time for anything, but if we don't how much time is going where, how do you know for sure that you don't have time?

My challenge is this: on a piece of paper write out all 24 hours, and for each hour write what you do in those times. It should only take a few minutes. You block out your time for work and sleep. Now your focus is on the 8 free hours you do have. Write out what you do in those times. You'd be surprised at the extra time you find, and the time you waste on pointless things. 

Try it out. Reclaim your time. 

BE GREATER! 

A couple of months back we talked about the difference between a personal trainer and a fitness coach. They both may sound the same but the duties are different. Mainly a personal trainer is one who you meet with, whether at a gym or at your home, and guides you through a workout. 

Our focus here this time around is to dive into the role of a fitness coach and what I do. 

A fitness coach provides a few things: 

1) Programming
2) Accountability
3) Consistency
4) Guidance

With a fitness coach, a level of self-motivation, self-discipline is required. You won't have a coach standing next to you giving you instructions during your session. What you will get though with a coach is some staying on you consistently, making sure that the workouts they designed for you, and any other tasks given are completed on time. 

I've brought up accountability and consistency quite a few times over various different posts, and it's because those are the key ingredients to successfully making improvements to yourself.  We fail at bettering our health and wellness due no one holding us accountable. Then we're not consistent. We don't see the results we want and then we quit.

As a coach, quitting is not an option for my clients. We're in this together so we work as a team to reach that goal. As a coach, regular check-ins are provided to ensure we're staying on the right path. 

Picture a bridge with you on one side and I on the other. The middle of the bridge is unfinished and needs some work done on it in order to be completed. We'll meet at the middle of that bridge with me giving you all the tools and discipline needed. From there we'll work as a team to get the job done!

So, let's get started!

***Like me on Facebook at Vanbar Fitness and follow me on Instagram @vanbarfitness. 

BE GREEATER 

I remember it like it was yesterday. The day I signed up for my first gym membership. With my newly acquired contract came a free personal training session. 

I was a skinny 18 year old, ready to enter into this new world full of dumbbells, sweat, weights, and racks, so why not take them up on the offer?

Let me tell you, I got worked! My legs felt like jello after that session. I felt as if I needed a cane to walk up and down the steps. My legs were of no use to me at all. I wondered why anybody would put themselves through this kind of torture to feel pain all over their body. I was ready for that to be my first and last time I ever went to the gym. 

I waited a couple of days (alright, maybe a week) before I went back to the gym for my next workout. I went straight to the back of the gym and occupied a bench, because that's what we're supposed to do, right?

​I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but figured I'd look at what others were doing and then copy them. As time went on, I became more educated with working out by learning, by studying, all because I fell in love with it. 

But how many of us were like me, or are still like me? Went into the gym and had no idea what they were doing, or didn't like the feeling of being sore. 

Now I'm not saying you have to enjoy being sore, but that brings me to one of the reasons we don't stick with a workout program. 

1) We don't like being sore. 

I know it seems hard to believe, but the soreness that sometimes come with working out hold some of us back. We want to avoid. We don't want to go through it. We don't want to experience some temporary pain and so we avoid working out all together. 

Another reason why we don't stick with a program:

2) We don't know what we're doing. 

Think about it, would you stick with something that you don't know how to do? Of course not. We try a few workouts, but don't really have a clue if it's working, so we stop. Now that shouldn't give us an excuse to stop working out. We should either educate ourselves or find help, whether that be from a friend, coach, or trainer. 

The last reason we'll cover today is:

3) We set unrealistic expectations 

We get caught up with fads, or think that we can lose 50 pounds in a few weeks or build exploding biceps after a few sessions in the gym. I'm here to tell you that's not going to happen. Wherever we are physically right now didn't happen overnight, so changing it to where we want it to go won't happen instantly either. 

The great news is that the process to get where you want physically is shorter than the years it took to get our body to the point that made us decide to make a change.

Now, this isn't a complete list of all the reasons why we don't stick with a workout program, but it is a start. I wanted us to start the conversation and see if one of these reasons are holding us back from working out. Maybe it's none of these. Maybe it's more than one. Or maybe it's another reason. 

Do you have trouble sticking with a workout program? 

I want to hear from you and help you overcome that. Email me at [email protected] and reply to me with #1, #2, or #3. Then let's work to make sure that's not an issue any longer. 

***Like me on Facebook at Vanbar Fitness and follow me on Instagram @vanbarfitness. 

​BE GREATER